Evolution of the person census and the estimation of population counts in New Zealand, United Kingdom, Italy and Israel

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Bernardini, Antonella^a | Brown, James^b | Chipperfield, James^{c; *} | Bycroft, Christine^d | Chieppa, Angela^a | Cibella, Nicoletta^a | Dunnet, Gary^d | Hawkes, Michael F.^e | Hleihel, Ahmad^f | Law, Eleanor C.^e | Ward, Daniel^e | Zhang, Li-Chun^g

Affiliations: [a] Italian National Institute of Statistics, Italy | [b] University of Technology Sydney, Australia | [c] Australian Bureau of Statistics, ABS House Belconnen, ACT, Australia | [d] Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand | [e] Office of National Statistics, UK | [f] Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel | [g] University of Southampton, UK

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: James Chipperfield, Australian Bureau of Statistics, ABS House Belconnen, ACT, Australia. Tel.: +61 2 421086207; E-mail: james.chipperfield@abs.gov.au.

Abstract: A Census of a nation’s people and housing provides statistics about its health, income and social structures at a local level. While the demand for these statistics is unchanged the way they are collected is changing in many nations because of common drivers: cost pressure, web-based collection, decreasing response rates, environmental shocks and the availability of administrative data. Within this context, this paper gives an overview of the evolution of the Census in Israel, Italy, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom and thereby provides an insight of the challenges and solutions of the modern Census.

Keywords: Population census, administrative data, statistical registers, coverage estimation

DOI: 10.3233/SJI-220018

Journal: Statistical Journal of the IAOS, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 1221-1237, 2022